The Spectrum of Digital Connection, From “Likes” to Deep Conversations

The other day I was telling a friend about my goal to be better about responding to text messages in a more timely manner. My friend agreed: this was something I needed to work on! And this was fair. Other friends have called me out on this, too. 

But after recent episodes about virtual communities, parasocial relationships, and online friendship, it hit me that I’m not actually bad at ALL digital connection; I’m just drawn to certain types.

In today’s episode, I delve into the spectrum of digital connection, which I’ve segmented into four levels: surface-level signals, active updates, intentional connection, and deeper dive connections. I cover the purpose and challenges of each and why they matter.

I hope this episode helps you find your “sweet spot” and figure out where you’d like to focus your digital attention, because here’s the thing about digital communication: it’s not just some optional add-on to friendship anymore. 

Whether our friends live across the world or ten minutes away, bumping into each other online is one of the primary ways we connect these days, so strengthening this skill will only help your friendships. 

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• My four levels of digital connection: surface-level signals, active updates, intentional connection, and deeper dive connections, and examples for each
• Understanding our own strengths and weaknesses in digital connection and the practice it takes to become skilled in each format
• The value and challenges for each form of communication; for example, surface-level signals and active updates are easy to implement but can sometimes feel one-sided
• Common struggles in digital connection, including mismatched expectations, overwhelm, and guilt about missing updates, and how to manage these struggles

Resources & Links

Listen to my recent episodes on digital connection, including Episode 129 and Episode 130, about making friends online, and Episode 128 about parasocial relationships.

Like what you hear? Visit my website, leave me a voicemail, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok!

Want to take this conversation a step further? Send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting and use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out!

This episode is sponsored by Slowly, a digital pen pal app used by over 10 million people worldwide. If you’ve been looking for a low-pressure way to connect with someone completely outside your normal friendship circle, this is it. Exchange letters at your own pace, no small talk panic required.

Download Slowly free and get 30% off Slowly Plus using my link: https://open.slowly.app/miXL/l8ei5iw6

WANT MORE?

My book, Are We Friends Yet? hits shelves June 16. Get on the waitlist for pre-order bonuses + a first look.

Dive into The Connection Reset. A 10-day private podcast to help you see the abundance of connection that already exists in your day-to-day (Yes. Really. I promise you have more than you realize). Start today. 

Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 1:26

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship

Alex Alexander: 2:24

So I was at dinner the other night with a friend, and I told her that I was continuing to work on my 2025 goal of being better at texting friends back. And I was telling her that I think I'm doing better. And her response was, uh, yeah, you and another friend who I'm not gonna throw under the bus here, you two are the worst, so I guess I still have some room for improvement. But, like, listen, it's not exactly breaking news. I know it to the point where I made this an active goal for 2025, and my friends in the past have regularly called me out on this and honestly, fair, because here's the thing, digital connection isn't just some optional add on to friendship anymore. Whether our friends live across the world or a 10 minute drive away, bumping into each other online is one of the main ways we're holding our connections together nowadays, after our recent episodes about virtual communities, parasocial relationships, and whether online friends are real friends, which are all the most recent past episodes, if you go back and scroll, it is obvious that I have been thinking a lot like a lot, a lot about digital connection. And here's what hit me, I'm not actually bad as some blanket statement, like, I'm not bad at digital connection overall. I am just drawn to certain types while completely dropping the ball on others and the ones that I'm good at, they're actually easier if I put time and energy and effort into the simpler ones where I'm falling short. And if you're like, Alex, what the heck are you talking about? Then I'm excited to tell you that one of the things that I've come up with in the past few weeks, when I have been probably overthinking digital connection, is this spectrum of digital connection that I want to break down for you today, everything from quickly double tapping on a friend's post to deep conversations, from group chats to emergency phone calls. We're gonna look at the purpose of each of these four levels that I came up with, why they matter, and yes, the challenges that might be tripping you up with each one, because maybe, just maybe you're like me making blank statements about being bad at digital connection when really you just haven't found your sweet spot yet. So with that, let's dive in. The four levels that I came up with. The first one is called surface-level signals, something as simple as giving a like or a double tap on a friend's post. The next one is active updates, which could be comments, DMS, group chats. The third one is intentional connection, something like sending a voice message to a friend. And the fourth one are deeper-dive connections, which is when we're really getting in there with the combos. And I'm going to give you way more examples of each one of these. But as you can see, there's just the simple ones where we're not even really having to, like, think of a response, right? We're just acknowledging we're here, and your friend may or may not see that, all the way to the ones where it is one on one, deeper conversations. Now, as you hear that, maybe this is a great moment to reflect on which ones you're more drawn to, because what I realized is that I'm drawn to those deeper ones. I love picking up the phone. I've talked about that in recent episodes. I love calling people. I love when people call me, and I think I do pretty okay at the surface-level signals, but those middle two I'm really struggling with personally. Hence my 2025 goal to be better at responding to text messages. But if I could just be a little more consistent with those, it would make the deeper conversations even easier. Do you see what I'm saying? Maybe you'll get it by the end. But I think we're all drawn to certain ones, and in a world where we are just being inundated with so many digital connection opportunities all the time, it can feel hard, and I think we can kind of pigeonhole ourselves into certain areas, and it feels hard to get out of those. The other thing to think about as I talk through this is, which ones do you like to receive? Like, for example, are you even paying attention to the surface-level signals, or do they not matter to you? You'll understand as I dive in. So with that, let's talk more about this idea of surface-level signals. I'm going to list off a bunch of potential types of connection here. One could be watching a friend's Instagram stories like that. Simple. Now I'm going to tell you right now, even on my business account, let alone my personal account, I don't look at who watches those. I don't, so if a friend is watching those, thinking that that's a connection, like I'm not seeing it, do you see what I'm saying here? Like there can be a real mismatch. Okay, I'm gonna keep going surface-level signals. So watching someone's Instagram stories, double tapping a post, right, giving it a like, a quick emoji reaction to a message, you know, other platforms, right, viewing someone's LinkedIn updates and giving it a LIKE, following a Twitter or Threads thread, watching someone's BeReal post. Basically, these surface-level signals are ways that we are maintaining awareness of our friends’ lives without a direct interaction. And there can be value here. You're creating some ongoing sense of presence and light touchpoints with someone. Now the challenge, I think there's a few challenges here. One is that these can feel superficial or one sided, right? We've all heard the frustration where maybe you'll say, like, I know that friend is watching every story or reading every update, but they never reach out to me to tell me congrats, or they never acknowledge that they saw those things. On the flip side, what I mentioned earlier, a friend of mine might be watching everything intently, and because I'm not checking, I have no idea that they're trying to stay connected in that way. So to me, they may think that I'm seeing all these little touch points. I'm not, but somebody's putting in energy there. Somebody's paying attention. Another really simple one is, you know, on Instagram, you can now like somebody's story. I do that all the time. If I'm watching an Instagram story of a friend or a person, and I want them to know that I saw it and I love it. I mean, I think I liked three stories this morning. But if someone's not checking those updates, or they're not paying attention, it might totally slip by them. They might also be looking at it and thinking, Okay, well, she liked that, but why didn't she send me a message? Why didn't she send me a voice memo? Why didn't she tell me what she thought about it? Right? It could be a jumping off point that could be their thoughts. Okay, let's move on to the next type. The next one are active updates. So some examples of this would be group chat participation. Could be taking it a step further on social media and leaving a comment. Could be responding to some sort of stories or post with a DM with like your actual specific thoughts. It could be sharing memes or TikToks, right? That friend, or those friends where you're just constantly sending posts back and forth to each other, like this made me think of you, or you're gonna think this is funny. Another would be quick check in text. So I'm not talking big text threads. I'm talking you know, you're sending that message just being like, hey, thinking of you. Hope you're having a good week, the ones where you maybe aren't really expecting a response. Birthday messages would be another example. Or responding to like life updates, where somebody is maybe openly sharing a story or a post. Or something, and you send maybe a little bit longer of a message. I just did this yesterday. Some friends were traveling somewhere we've been, and I sent them a message being like, oh my gosh, I love that. You guys are going there. You're gonna love it so much. If you want any recommendations, let me know. But now I'm kind of leaving it on them. Do you see what I'm saying there? It's not like I'm asking for a response back. I'm just sending a quick ping, not really expecting this to turn into some big one on one conversation. Now, the purpose of these active updates is that they're kind of regular, lightweight engagement, ways to show active interest in your friends. And I think that there is some value there, because it allows you to maintain regular connection without a heavy time investment, and it kind of lets you off the hook for some of the vulnerability. If you're concerned that your friends are really busy or they may not respond back to you, it's sending that message just being like, hey, hope you're having a great week, and you've probably kind of already decided inside that if they just like it, or they say, yeah, pretty good one. If it doesn't start some bigger conversation, you've already said you're okay with that. Now the challenge, there's a few challenges, of course, one is that it can be really overwhelming when you have multiple active places that this is happening if it's on maybe multiple social media platforms, plus your text threads, maybe you're on G chat, maybe you're also on WhatsApp, you know, if you've got, I mean, I'd love to know how many channels you have going, because honestly, if I start thinking about it personally, I mean, gosh, I don't know. I probably got eight to 10 channels. Is this why I'm struggling so hard? And then you add in my work stuff. I mean, I'm seriously managing 15 to 20 channels of communication. So I definitely think that can be a challenge. I think another challenge here can be that sometimes it's nice to have this regular connection that doesn't have that heavy time investment, or I don't feel like my friends expect a response back. Sometimes that feels freeing, but other times, I think we can all admit that, like we actually want our friends to want a response. If that makes sense, just a thought, you know, if they can send me, you know, having a great week. And I just have to say, Yep, good week, versus actually getting into that deeper conversation. Like, sometimes I want to have the deeper conversation, but then I get nervous of like, oh, okay, maybe they just, they don't have time either. So now I'm sending a short response back. Gosh, how much are we all overthinking this? Okay, so the third type is what I'm calling intentional connection. So this would be maybe sending Voice Memos where you are trying to have a little bit deeper of that conversation, or you're having those one on one detailed text conversations where you are expecting responses, you are asking active questions, you are sending updates about your life. There's some other ideas here. Maybe an online game night where you're on Zoom and you're focused on each other, or virtual coffee dates, shared digital activities. You know, I was just talking to someone. This podcast episode is coming out soon. Her and her girlfriends live far away from each other, and they have a regular I think they watch a show all on Zoom together from across the country. So any sort of shared activity like that, or maybe like scheduled calls, whether that's phone calls or FaceTime, but it's not the, you know, I just picked up the phone and called you. It's like we pre planned this. And the difference there is kind of the vulnerability and the intimacy of just reaching out unannounced. Now, the purpose of these intentional connections is creating some dedicated space for deeper connection. And I think a huge value here is that it maintains intimacy despite the distance, because we are having those deeper chats with each other. Now the challenge, there's always a few challenges, is that these require more energy and scheduling, and sometimes I think we can get lost in that. And I think we also can make a lot of assumptions about our friends, energy and scheduling, like instead of asking if they have time for a call, we just assume they don't, and then we're sending those quick check in texts, for example. I think another challenge can be if we're having those one on one in-person conversations, let's say in a text message thread. Amongst our day, they can kind of get lost, and I think we've all probably ended up in scenarios where we're just sending you, like one or two messages asynchronously, and the conversation we're having isn't even that deep or that long of a conversation, but because we're only sending one to two messages to each other a day, what could have been a 10 minute phone call is a seven day text thread. And I think sometimes that can feel a little challenging. It's my personal take, at least, is that sometimes that I find that a little frustrating. So the fourth on this digital connection spectrum is what I'm calling deeper-dive connections, and this is where we're kind of amping up the intimacy a little bit. This is like when maybe you know that it's just time to call a friend, versus text them like you just know you ought to pick it up. Or maybe you're in the middle of a text message conversation and you realize that, like, we really should just talk about this. And that could be for a good reason, right? That could be bad. Maybe there's some sort of conflict going on, but it also could be that your friend just told you they got a promotion, and instead of sending back a like, a “woo!” message, you just pick up the phone and you're, you know, like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited for you. That could be an example of kind of this, like deeper-dive, way to build more intimacy in our digital connections. Another would be kind of like reading between the lines when you're messaging someone. So if you're I mean a conflict or a positive, and let's say it's a conflict, because why not? And you can tell that your friend's kind of frustrated and you're like, hey, it seems like you're a little frustrated about the fact that it's taken seven days for this conversation to happen. Should we talk about it and actually trying to have those deeper conversations that sometimes get lost in the mix when we're connecting digitally, another could be picking up on what I'm calling digital distress signals. So when that friend sends a message, it's like, yeah, I'm fine. The week's fine. And you send the message back, being like, are you I'm not really sure you are fine. Like, do you want to talk about it? You don't need to be fine in this situation, something like that. Another would be being available for crisis moments or crisis situations, whether that's via text message, FaceTime, phone call. One of my favorites, I've mentioned this before, like I just did this for a friend, is if somebody's going through something, one of my favorite things to tell them is like, Hey, I took you off. Do not disturb. So if you call me right on my phone, I have, like, the sleep setting, where really not many people ring through in the middle of the night if they call me. Fun fact, though, did you know if you call someone twice, it will always ring through. So if it's an emergency, call twice in five minutes, but I will tell a friend who's really going through something like, Hey, I put you on so you'll bypass that. Like, if you call me at any time, day or night, I will answer I think that would be a way to show some intimacy in our digital connections. Another one would be understanding your friends communication preferences in tough times, maybe they want phone calls. Maybe they don't want phone calls. Maybe they prefer voice messages so they can save them things like that. And the purpose of these deeper-dive connections is just providing more crucial support, deeper connection during important moments, whether those are crisis moments, or whether they are really positive moments, knowing when to just lean in in our digital connections and try and remove as many barriers and feel as close to each other as possible. I think the value here is that it's really maintaining trust and deep friendship bonds. But the challenge can be that it takes practice. It takes practice to develop this, like high emotional intelligence digitally. You might be so skilled at this in-person, but I do think it takes practice digitally if it doesn't feel natural to you, and it can take a lot of communication, and it can take a lot of just really direct questions, like, Hey, I, if I was in your scenario, right? If I was in your crisis, I would want you to just call me. Is that also what you want? Things like that? And then I think the other challenge here is just availability. Sometimes it just doesn't align in one way or another, and that can be really hard when one friend wants this deeper connection, or needs this deeper connection, and the other person, just for one reason or another, doesn't have the capacity for it in this moment. Now, I mentioned that I think I'm doing really well at some of these and not others. And now that you've heard all of them, you might have some feelings about yourself. And I think you know, like, Why does understanding these levels of the digital connection spectrum matter? Because maybe we can give ourselves some grace. Because what I realized is I am doing really well at the deeper-dive connections, and I think I'm doing pretty good at the surface-level signals, and I think in the middle, I'm just really overwhelmed, and I need to figure out a plan for myself and or I need to figure out which of those I'm gonna lean into and maybe get better at and develop better skills, and which of them I'm gonna let go of. And I think the other layer of why this is important is because we can start to maybe think about our different friends and the levels they might need. We've all heard different stories of friends being frustrated about different things, like the friend who maybe is really upset that you didn't message them on their birthday. That doesn't really matter to me, but to some people, that is like an ultimate friendship red flag to them, I guess if you don't message them on their birthday, they are really going to take that personally. Another could be some friends really want a response to their messages in a certain amount of time. Some friends might want an actual text message response or voice memo and be really frustrated if you just like or heart or give an emoji reaction. I'm sure we all know a friend who is paying attention to the people that watch their stories or like their social media posts. Another example is, I've definitely heard about people, had people here on the podcast who are really frustrated for, let's say, like they have a business that they've created social media for, and they're really mad that their friends aren't liking those posts and commenting on them. So if we start to understand how our friends want or need different levels, and we give ourselves maybe some grace. If that's not a level we're very good at, we can communicate that to our friends, and we can try and figure out a happy medium. Now, I've already done this a little bit, but I want to talk a little bit more about these struggles. I've mentioned some of them, but let's just be really direct about them. Lay them out here. One of the struggles is a mismatch in the expectations and wants for communication between friends. So in this case, it could be that some friends want those small, consistent pings they are really paying attention to the surface-level signals and the active updates. Whereas you want big updates, you want the direct communication and the deeper-dive connections, and that's what matters to you. So you are just way less concerned about like the surface-level pings. And if there's that mismatch, it can lead to a lot of frustration. Another common struggle would be this idea of feeling overwhelmed by trying to maintain all levels with everyone. And what I would say here is number one, maybe do an audit on how many channels you're trying to tackle at one time. And we just heard that I'm gonna do that. But another thing is, just like remembering that not every friendship requires all levels, right? If you have some of these, like simpler friendships in your life, maybe you don't need all the deeper-dive connections, and you can just put a little bit of energy every week, let's say every month, into some of the surface-level signals, making it a point to go through and actually like or comment or send a little message. So you're just giving little pings to those simpler connections in your life, and then you can put some more of your energy into the deeper-dive connections. Or if the deeper-dive connection isn't something you're very good at, then maybe a goal is to lean into that a little bit more with some of your deeper friendships and connections. Another common struggle is the guilt of missing important updates. Now, in my case, this is the guilt of not responding to text messages. But it could also be that maybe you're just not really a social media person, and you have friends who are talking about their life in that way, right? They are expecting you to lean in and double like to respond back. You don't really go on social media. There's like that mismatch here, and then when you do talk to them, when you do have those deeper level conversations, they assume maybe that you've seen some of their life updates and you haven't, and then you feel bad because that's where they're sharing, but it's not something you're actively looking at like that could be a struggle. Another common struggle is the pressure to respond immediately, which I think we've all experienced, that we've all experienced a moment where, for one reason or another, whether you're like me, and it's a struggle to respond or maybe you are really quick to respond, but your friends aren't, and there can just be all this frustration about the fact that you know, maybe you assume that their phone is still in their hand and they saw it and they didn't respond. Maybe it was a response that they're anxious about sending something like that, like that, mismatch can cause a lot of anxiety and a lot of frustration with our friends. Now, what do I want you to do with I guess, everything I've given you today, my hope is that you're going to kind of think about your digital sweet spot, identify where you are naturally strong in digital connections. It could be one, it could be two. Maybe you're just crushing it at all of them. I don't know. I'd love to hear how you're doing that if you are. But then I think that really what is maybe the longer term work here is starting to understand what levels your friends care about what's important for different friendships and relationships in your life? Do you tend to have the same levels that you're both looking for? Does there feel like there's a mismatch there? Maybe this is something that's worth having a conversation about. And then the next piece of finding your digital sweet spot is kind of this permission. Of this permission to not be great at all the levels, or maybe not be great overall, like for example. Maybe an example for me would be those middle levels. Maybe I just, instead of stop telling myself I need to be perfect and respond to everyone all the time and do all these things, maybe I just need to identify certain relationships where I really want to lean in and be better in those relationships, and I can be not great when it comes to other communications. So an example here would be like, maybe for certain friendships, my goal is to be really responsive to text messages and work on that, but maybe I can give myself a little bit of permission when it comes to my business channels, and maybe I don't need to feel like I need to respond immediately or Honestly, even the same day, maybe it's okay to respond the next day or three times a week or something like that. That would be a way I could give myself some permission, and then, as you figure this all out, try and communicate it to your people. You don't need to make it a big ordeal. You could be like me and make it into a goal and talk about it with your friends. But you also could just say something like, Hey, I realize that I think there's a mismatch here. You know, I'm really not on social media, and I think that you tend to post a lot of our life updates there, and I'm I'm missing those right? Just acknowledge it. Maybe they've never thought about it that way before, and this big frustration they've always had, you can find some new middle ground between the two of you. Now I'd love to tell you that I have had a bunch of success in implementing these levels in my life, but I really only have come up with these in the last few weeks. I've only started noticing them, so it's definitely something I will be reporting back to you on. I do think that just my initial first reaction is this is a way to maybe be kinder to myself. It just seems upon reflecting that like this is a lot, we are all balancing so much digital connection, which on one hand, is great because it keeps us connected to the people in our lives and gives us that accessibility, but it can also just feel like a lot, and I think I need to be a little kinder to myself about that. I think this is also something where we can go deeper. I've been working on some stuff related to digital boundaries, how to read digital cues, and how to maintain intimacy in your friendships across the digital world. So be on the lookout for those. I don't have those in this episode, but it is definitely something that is top of mind now that I've been diving deeper into this, and I mentioned this earlier in the episode, but I have been kind of doing a little series on digital connection the past few weeks. So if that's something you're interested in and you haven't been listening to every episode, go back and listen to I can't think if it's the three or four episodes prior to this, but you'll be able to tell in the titles. Go back and give those a listen. I would love to hear your thoughts on this digital connection spectrum. It really has made me way more aware of just the endless pings and updates and notifications that are coming at me every day. And I think maybe that's part of it is it can just we can get a little numb to it because it's so constant. So I'm trying to be more aware of which ones I want to be more active in that I want to actually, like, stop what I'm doing and have my attention on them, give give them a moment. So I hope it does the same for you, and with that, I'll see you next week.

Podcast Intro/Outro: 34:09

Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.